SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS, Mexico (Reuters) -- Mexico has
                  resumed expelling foreigners from the embattled state of Chiapas, and in
                  doing so has reignited a human rights debate.

                  The government has made it clear that it considers many foreigners
                  meddlesome activists, while human rights groups insist that Mexico is
                  targeting those seeking to be peaceful observers.

                  The U.S. non-governmental organisation Global Exchange said on
                  Wednesday one of its members was expelled on Monday from the southern
                  state, the battleground of a five-year standoff between authorities and
                  Zapatista Indian rebels.

                  Two other U.S. citizens were "invited" to leave the country while an Italian
                  and a Japanese tourist were "interrogated" about their activities in Chiapas,
                  Global Exchange representative Ernesto Ledesma told Reuters.

                  In a statement, the Mexican National Immigration Service confirmed it had
                  expelled U.S. citizen Anna Jean Brown and banned her from Mexico for life.

                  The agency said she failed to attend a hearing with immigration officials after
                  they accused her of carrying out illegal political activities in Chiapas.

                  Brown became the first foreigner to be booted out of Chiapas in 1999,
                  marking the resumption of a campaign against so-called "revolutionary
                  tourists" that began early last year after Interior Minister Francisco Labastida
                  took office.

                  Visitors entering Mexico on tourist visas are barred from any role in politics,
                  which the government has interpreted as including giving assistance to the
                  Zapatistas, who took up arms on New Year's Day 1994 demanding
                  improved indigenous rights.

                  More than 50 foreigners were expelled from Chiapas in the first half of 1998
                  before the expulsions tailed off. The hardline approach has been condemned
                  by rights groups, which accuse the government of trying to hamper the work
                  of human rights monitors in Chiapas.

                  Following the initial bloody rebellion, there has been no full-blown
                  confrontation between the rebels, holed up in jungle hide-outs, and the
                  70,000-strong army presence in the state.

                  But frequent skirmishes between Zapatista and government sympathisers
                  have since left hundreds dead, including 45 Indians massacred by
                  pro-government paramilitaries in the highland village of Acteal in December
                  1997.

                  "The government doesn't want inconvenient witnesses and that's why it's
                  expelling foreigners who visit Indian communities in the conflict zone in
                  Chiapas," Ledesma said.

                  "Those expelled didn't break any laws but the government doesn't like
                  people to come and observe what's going on in Chiapas," he said. "This is
                  just a pretext."

                  At the height of the expulsions in the middle of last year, President Ernesto
                  Zedillo and other Mexican officials accused the San Francisco-based Global
                  Exchange of breaking local laws by sending activists into the country on
                  tourist visas.

                  Global Exchange organises tours to the world's trouble spots aimed at
                  showing "what's really happening."

                  The National Immigration Service charged in its statement on Wednesday
                  that the group encouraged its tour participants to lie to Mexican officials
                  about their plans in Mexico and was therefore guilty of fomenting criminal
                  activity.

                   Copyright 1999 Reuters.